Things to Do in Stonehenge

Stonehenge stone circle

You'll walk the roped perimeter. The stones loom, pitted and graffito-scarred. Lintels still slot together like prehistoric Lego. Jackdaws land on gaps, wings clapping. Low light makes quartz in the bluestones glint like frost.

Durrington Walls earthworks

A 20-minute riverside walk leads from the visitor centre to the massive henge ditch. Stonehenge builders once lived here. Skylarks reel overhead. Cow parsley brushes your knees. You peer down into the grassy amphitheatre.

Ancient Britain museum gallery

Inside the curved exhibition hall an ambient soundtrack of chanting and wind plays low. 250 archaeological finds sit under glass: gold hair tresses, flint arrowheads, a reconstructed timber sledge. Kids sprint to the touchscreen that spins a 3-D stone.

Cursus Barrow ridge walk

Follow the grassy bridleway north-west. You crest a ridge lined with Bronze Age bowl barrows. Larks rise at your feet. Wild thyme scents the air under boot. Stonehenge shrinks against the plain. Army firing-range flags flutter in the distance.

Winterbourne Stoke medieval church

Five minutes' drive west, an 800-year-old stone-and-flint church faces a thatched pub. Inside smells of hymn-book paper and old heating oil. Light filters through 15th-century glass onto a faded crusader effigy.

Amesbury town centre offers basic chain hotels within walking distance of a decent curry house and the Antrobus Arms pub.

Salisbury cathedral quarter lines up half-timbered guesthouses along the Avon. Ten minutes by bus to the stones.

Woodford Valley shepherd's huts are glamping pods east of the A303. Skylight views of the plain.

Shrewton village B&Bs give farmhouse rooms and full English five minutes up the road.

Durrington army-barracks lodges rent budget rooms aimed at military families. Civilians welcome.

Winterbourne Stoke thatched cottages offer self-catering for the country-pub-and-footpath crowd.